Cuckoo stew
A hidden-away house.
A hushed city secret.
The garden is tended.
Miracles grow.
The shop on the corner
is just a greengrocer’s,
apples and brussels,
signs of the past.
Something is stewing:
‘best end of neck’,
a vapour, like wartime,
stale and unknown.
He simmers here quietly,
better without me,
a space invader,
I alter the tone.
RF 2021
Video/audio for this one here.
As mentioned last time, I had started going out with a guy who was a friend of a friend (well, a friend of a friend’s boyfriend). We had nothing in common (he didn’t even like clubbing which was pretty much my life at this point) but he liked me so I’m afraid I moved in with him far sooner than was advisable (Jan 1991, I was around 24). My bedsit was horrible and he lived in a rented terraced house just a few streets over that was comfy and spacious (certainly compared to my recent homes, it was owned by a friendly person, not a career landlord). This house was quite a change from my Leeds places so far as, whilst still in Headingley, it was in a hidden, friendly street and people had gardens that were used for things other than just storing empty pizza boxes (though judging by the current google pic, above, the garden is a little overgrown just now). Another friend of his living was there too and they both had odd hours (one a postal worker, one a croupier). I still had the advertising job – by the skin of my teeth – and they were unadvisedly sending me on business trips (I can’t have been a very good representative for the company – I guess in advertising the standards are low). By this time (after well over a year devoted to hardcore raving) I was very thin and often ill (lack of sleep, lack of food, always coughing and wondering why I felt so ill). It was starting to show mentally too and I had my first panic attack on the flight back from a few days at some interminable nylon conference in Germany (ICI Fibres was one of our clients). I wouldn’t recommend having your first full-blown panic attack in the crowded ‘business’ section of a small plane (it was same as the rest of the plane – just everyone, except me, was in a suit). It was pretty horrible and panic attacks of one sort or another were my companions for years after. I’ve never really enjoyed being a plane since (well, apart from the last ten minutes of a flight).
But back to the house – this boyfriend (it was his place) was quite an old-fashioned young man (long before this was seen as a good thing) and if the word had existed then you might have called him a ‘hipster’ (he had a beard, liked bread, made things, drank ale), but it didn’t and he wasn’t. He was just an individual, I suppose, behind (or ahead) of his time, and he didn’t care about anything like terms for groups of people or any nonsense like that, I’m sure he still doesn’t now. He didn’t much like his work but he liked to cook (meat!) and smoke (roll-ups) and go out for beers and dream about travelling (we got as far as Edinburgh together, i.e., not very far). I had Sunday lunch with his parents one time and I’m sure they could tell I was not right for him at all (and, as parents often are, they were totally correct). I hope he did find the right someone – we didn’t stay in touch (I hope he’s not, Sleeping Beauty style, hidden behind that overgrown garden). I moved out in May 1991 (a bigger love story beckoned) so it wasn’t a particularly friendly farewell. Maybe, as in My Name is Earl I need to go round making amends for some of these crimes. Or maybe somethings are better left alone. Anyway, next time – Kirkstall, Leeds (not that far).
This poem is part of the annual Fun A Day Dundee project where participants try to do something creative every day for the month of January. You don't have to be in Dundee to take part and there are other Fun A Day projects around the world. People post as much of their work online as they want to (largely on Instagram but it can be elsewhere too). This year I am posting a whole poem a day (one poem for each of the 31 addresses I have lived at, covering the period 1967-2021). Videos/photos of the poems show the places remembered in the poems but were mostly taken from recent Google Street View. The videos are on my Instagram, maybe elsewhere too. Use the hashtag #fadd2021 on social media to see other people's online contributions.
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